http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahul_Sankrityayan
Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan (9 April 1893 – 14 April 1963), who is called the Father of Hindi Travel literature, was one of the most widely travelled scholars of India, spending forty-five years of his life on travels away from his home.[1] He became a Buddhist monk (Bauddha Bhikkhu) and eventually took up Marxist Socialism.[1] Sankrityayan was also an Indian nationalist, having been arrested and jailed for three years for creating anti-British writings and speeches.[1] He is referred to as the 'Greatest Scholar' (Mahapandit) for his scholarship.[1] He was both a polymath as well as a polyglot.[1]
Childhood[edit]
He was born as Kedarnath Pandey on 9 April 1893 in Azamgarh district, in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. His father, Govardhan Pandey, was a farmer from the village Kanaila of Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh. His mother, Kulawanti, often stayed with her parents in the village of Kanaila, and this is where he was born. He was the eldest of four brothers. He spent part of his childhood in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. As both parents died when he was still quite young—his mother died at the age of twenty-eight and his father at the age of forty-five—he was brought up by his grandmother. His earliest memories as recorded by him were of the terrible famine in 1897. At age 9, he ran away from home to see the world, but later returned to his homeland.
He received formal schooling at a local primary school, though he later studied and mastered numerous languages independently, as well as the art of photography.
Travels[edit]
His travels took him to different parts of India,& all over the world including Ladakh, Kinnaur, and Kashmir. He also travelled to several other countries including Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Iran, China, and the former Soviet Union. He spent several years in the "Parsa Gadh" village in the Saran District in Bihar. The village's entry gate is named "Rahul Gate". While travelling, he mostly used surface transport, and he went to certain countries clandestinely; he entered Tibet as a Buddhist monk. He made several trips to Tibet and brought valuable paintings and Pali and Sanskrit manuscripts back to India. Most of these formed a part of the libraries of Vikramshila and Nalanda Universities. These objects had been taken to Tibet by fleeing Buddhist monks during the twelfth and subsequent centuries when the invading Muslim armies had destroyed universities in India. Some accounts state that Rahul Sankrityayan employed twenty-two mules to bring these materials from Tibet to India.He has a grandson named Prakhar Sankrityayan currently living in India. Patna Museum, Patna, has a special section of these materials in his honour, where a number of these and other items have been displayed